Quotations
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"... this I
conceive to be no time to prate of moral influences. Our men’s nerves
require their accustomed narcotics and a glass of whiskey is a powerful
friend in a sunstroke, and these poor fellows fall senseless on their
heavy drills"
"What armies and
how much of war I have seen, what thousands of marching troops, what
fields of slain, what prisons, what hospitals, what ruins, what cities
in ashes, what hunger and nakedness, what orphanages, what widowhood,
what wrongs and what vengeance."
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"You are
mistaken. I can carry that flag myself from the Mississippi all over the
rebel States, alone and unarmed, too."
Gilbert
Henderson Bates |
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"Bayonet!"
"They did
not know it themselves, what were their lofty deeds of body, mind, heart
and soul on that tremendous day."
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"People who are anxious to bring on
war don't know what they are bargaining for; they don't see all the
horrors that must accompany such an event."
"The men of that
command will be proud one day to say to their children; 'I was one of
the Stonewall Brigade.' I have no right to the name Stonewall. It
belongs to the brigade and not at all to me."
"Let us
pass over the river and rest under the shade of the trees."
"My duty is to obey
orders."
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"I think we know
what military fame is: To be killed on the field of battle and have our
names spelled wrong in the newspapers."
"There is many a boy here today who looks on war
as all glory, but boys, it is all hell."
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"Go back,
go back and do your duty, as I have done mine, and our country will be
safe. Go back, go back... I have rather die than be whipped".
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"It is well
that war is so terrible--we should grow too fond of it."
"Still a Union that can only be maintained by swords and bayonets, and
in which strife and civil war are to take the place of brotherly love
and kindness, has no charm for me".
"Do your duty in all things. You can not do more. You should never wish
to do less".
"I have been up to see the Congress,
and they do not seem to be able to anything except to eat peanuts and
chew tobacco, while my army is starving."
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"The art of war
is simple enough. Find out where your enemy is. Get at him as soon as
you can. Strike him as hard as you can, and keep moving on."
"Yours of this date proposing Armistice
and appointment of Commissioners, to settle terms of Capitulation, is
just received. No terms except an unconditional surrender can be
accepted. I propose to move immediately upon your works."
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"I have been a soldier all my life. I
have commanded companies, I have commanded regiments. I have commanded
divisions. And I have commanded even more. But there are no fifteen
thousand men in the world that can go across that ground."
"I would not give the life of a single
soldier of mine for barren victory."
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"If you surrender, you shall be treated
as prisoners of war, but if I have to storm your works, you may expect
no quarter."
“Charge ’em both ways!”
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"Sending armies to McClellan is
like shoveling fleas across a barnyard. Not half of them get
there.
"You
are green, it is true; but they are green also. You are all green
alike."
“As I would not be a slave, so I would not be
a master. This expresses my idea of democracy. Whatever
differs from this, to the extent of the difference, is not
democracy.” --- Abraham Lincoln, August 1, 1858
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"Damn the
torpedoes! Captain Drayton, go ahead! Jouett, full speed!"
"Everybody has a weak spot, and the first thing I try
to do is find out where it is, and pitch into it with the biggest shell
or shot that I have, and repeat that dose until it operates."
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"Damn you, gentlemen, I see skulkers. I'll have none here. Come on,
you volunteers, come on! This is your chance. You volunteered to
be killed for love of country, and now you can be. You damned volunteers
- I'm only a soldier and I don't want to be killed, but you came to be
killed and now you can be!" "Battle is the
ultimate to which the whole life's labor of an officer should be
directed. He must live to the age of retirement without seeing a
battle; still, he must always be getting ready for it exactly as if he
knew the hour of the day it is to break upon him. And then,
whether it come late or early, he must be willing to fight - he must
fight!"
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"The quarrel between
the North and South is, as it stands, solely a fiscal quarrel"
Charles Dickens |
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"Come and help me take that position or
stay back and watch men who will." Confederate
Major John Shropshire, just before he was shot between the eyes
at thee Battle of Pigeon's Ranch, New Mexico |
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"Who would be free themselves must strike
the blow... I urge you to fly to arms and smite to death the power that
would bury the Government and your liberty in the same hopeless grave.
This is your golden opportunity." Frederick
Douglas |
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"The Rebel army
is now the legitimate property of thee Army of the Potomac"
Union General Joseph Hooker, just before he was
soundly beaten at Chancellorsville |
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"Will the slave
fight? If any man asks you, tell him 'no' But, if anyone asks you, will
a Negro fight? Tell him yes!"
Wendell Phillips |
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“Descended from a long line of
illustrious warriors and statesmen, Robert Edward Lee added new glory to
the name he bore, and, whether measured by a martial or an intellectual
standard, will compare favorably with those whose reputation it devolved
upon him to sustain and emulate…”
Jefferson Davis, commenting on Robert E. Lee in a
post-war article for the North American Review
“All we ask is to be let
alone.” ---- Jefferson Davis
“Our present political situation has been achieved in
a manner unprecedented in the history of nations. It illustrates the
American idea that governments rest on the consent of the governed, and
that it is the right of the people to alter or abolish them at will
whenever they become destructive of the ends for which they were
established.” --- Jefferson Davis, in his inaugural address |
Resources:
Revised
07/20/2010 |
